When The Smoke Cleared: Micah's Mix
by patchworkangel
Summary: What was there left? When the war was over and the battle between both sides was finally concluded, what was there left? As Micah stood over the Potomac, watching the river below, he wondered, prayed, if there was still anything out there to hold him back


Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes. I'll zap you if you think otherwise.

Summary: A one shot from a series of one-shots that I'm writing on the possible (read: totally A/U) endings for characters from Heroes. They will all be set from between the first few minutes after the great 'Disaster', to the next months that followed. Each one shot will be focused on one character, and allude to others. This one is from Micah's POV - kinda, I'm the one narrating - and it's set during the first few minutes after the Disaster, and takes a lot of liberties with his future. Angst and grimness galore. Onwards!!

Please review if you like. I'd love to hear about your ideas for the other characters. Huggss!!

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**What Was There Left, When The Smoke Cleared?**

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**- Micah Sanders -**

What was there left after the smoke cleared? Micah didn't know. Maybe there was peace. Maybe there was just loneliness.

Three years to the day that his mom had died, he stood on the edge of the bridge, watching the water below flow like the world hadn't changed the day he first found out his mother was sometimes another person named Jessica. It was ironic, really, how so much of the world was still the same despite the changes that were already beginning to look normal in comparison. But Micah could hardly care sometimes. The world was always so much further behind him when it came to its expanding developments; that somehow, different seemed to make sense, and normal was odd.

But this new feeling of seeing the world move forward so fast that he himself was being left behind, unable to comprehend the possible future let alone the end in store - it was a strange feeling. Stranger than that day he walked into the parlor to finally say goodbye to his mother, only to see her standing there again, alive as the daylight.

Even now, three years to the day, he wanted to believe it was his mother giving him another chance to forgive himself. And doing so by meeting Tracy Strauss.

Micah's tired eyes trained upwards towards the heavens. The sky was dark, and yet the sun was rising. Somewhere in the back of his mind he understood that the dawn was the last he'd see, because if the dying cell phone in his hand was any indication, there wasn't going to be another call for help - let alone a warning. Static buzzed through his palms, and he recalled his old friend Hana, who died and became a strand of numbers, stuck in the memory of cyberspace - but still, stuck without a way out.

That was how he was feeling now. Stuck. The cell phone was on its final bar, but even then, it was useless. The satellites had been knocked out. The radio towers were gone. The world was silent. He desperately ran a finger over the keypad, calling out for help - for anyone! But all he heard in return was silence. And the echo of his own voice. If there was a time when someone said they felt alone without anyone to talk to, this was the moment it was truer than God himself.

Static continued to sting at his fingers, nothing but tendrils of electricity only he could ever feel, voiceless, save for a voice message he had kept in its memory that he couldn't bear to throw away. He looked down at it, before glancing down at the Potomac and wondering if anyone knew what was going through his mind. He could end it all right now, just take one step and he'll be off with his parents, with his cousin, and with those people back there he helped kill. God, the guilt was still burning through him, searing inside his veins, and it was unstoppable. Unforgiving. He thought that by helping the Company find their target it would help ease the guilt, but it didn't. And now, he was standing over the river, watching as the new world was anything but saved, and wondering if he could be saved as well.

He was only fourteen. Fourteen year olds shouldn't have death on their fingertips.

Micah took a last breath and inhaled the smoky air. The darkness was over, and the end had come and gone. But he didn't think this was the future his mother wanted for him. Or the one his father promised him. It was still heavy with pain and suffering, and Micah didn't know if he could help with either. Without machines that made him special, he was nothing more than a boy among the wilderness, alone and without anyone out there to look out for him. Tracy, had made it clear that she couldn't take him under her wings - she wasn't Niki and that was that.

Micah didn't even argue that it didn't matter. It never mattered if Niki - his mother - wasn't who she said she was. All he needed was his mother. When Tracy walked away, he wondered if he could take the loss again, and it hurt more than anything to realise that he could.

But this time, this time.

He closed his eyes and opened his arms. Helping that machine become a weapon of destruction that killed hundreds of humans was one thing. But holding his hand out and pulling the trigger on Barbara was another. He could still see her eyes, so full of contempt for him, and wanting nothing more than to destroy him for what he'd done, for being the one who led them to her, after he promised to let her go. He never hoped for another chance when he saw her - no, he had learned his lesson before - but that didn't mean that he hated her. He couldn't hate her. Despite all that he was becoming, a prodigal son wasn't one of them. But at the final moment between her promise to end him and his promise to protect others, he chose the path he long feared. He fired the gun.

And now, after dumping the piece of metal along with his Company clearance dogtags, far into the Potomac below, he wondered what the other side was like. Was it a better world without smoke and chaos? Was it a real happy ending where the wars came to a close, and everyone saw the sun rise along with their dreams? Was it a better promise than the ones he'd lived on for the last three years?

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe there would be peace. Maybe there would be loneliness. Micah didn't know for sure.

But what he did know was that he wanted to find out. Snapping the clamshell shut, he let the wind ruffle his hair for one last time.

Then he jumped.


End file.
